Inside the London trauma clinic helping vulnerable women survive

When Bec Evans thinks about the most difficult period in her life, her words are stark: ‘I’d look at myself in the mirror and tell myself how disgusting I was.’

The award-winning filmmaker was raised by a single mother in Camden, London, and after a family break down at an early age, Bec operated at ‘1000 miles an hour’ as she tried to be ‘the best at everything.’

She found some solace in nature and would travel nearly two hours into the suburbs of London to be with horses – her favourite animal. But, when she went away to university, Bec could no-longer keep up the façade of pretending to be okay.

‘I have struggled with mental health for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t have the words for it,’ she tells Metro. ‘Things reached a peak when I went to university. I’d been doing some hard drugs, I didn’t have a structure to define me, I’d broken up with my boyfriend and my grandfather died. I collapsed at university and became immobile, unable to communicate with anyone.’

As a reaction to the extreme stress Bec was under, her acne became ‘explosive’ – and a way for her to self-harm. ‘I would scratch my face and pull them [the spots] off my face. I was in a really bad way,’ she remembers.

To treat her skin, Bec was put on Accutane, a strong drug which has to administered closely as it can cause intense mood swings and even suicidal thoughts.

‘The NHS said I had to be monitored weekly, so I was sent to a local charity clinic called Women + Health to see a therapist,’ says Bec. ‘At that time, I was a shell of a person and felt so ashamed of myself. But I distinctly remember sitting in the waiting room and feeling this huge warmth. I still have a clear vision of Honey, the receptionist, and her smile.’

Today, Bec is speaking from a therapy room at the clinic’s base in Camden on a cold winter afternoon. For over 30 years the charity has helped vulnerable women deal with trauma, including survivors of sexual violence, unpaid carers and new mums. Since 2015 they have welcomed male clients on chosen evenings and through donations, are able to offer support at a free or heavily reduced rate.

In 2023-24, Women + Health gave just over 3,000 body therapy sessions and more than 3,500 counselling sessions to people, including Bec. She had Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) to treat her acne-related body dysmorphia and, separately, reflexology [which sees pressure to specific points on the feet] to manage stress when she was a carer for her mother after a brain haemorrhage.  

‘I had the most incredible experience,’ Bec says. ‘I had never believed in it, I’d thought “feeling emotions through your feet? That’s going a bit too far.”  But I had one session and literally everything changed. My entire upper body was convulsing and I was just streaming tears. I was going through an incredibly traumatic time and it felt like I was finally able to release that emotion I’d held in.’

When Metro visits the Women + Health building, there’s a steady stream of chatter.

An art workshop is setting up in one room, therapy is taking place in another, and warm cups of coffee are being prepared. We meet volunteer Claudia Chapman after she has just finished an afternoon of Kundalini Rising classes – which is said to help regulate a woman’s nervous system – and life-coaching sessions. She explains how she often notices a heartbreaking pattern in her clients.

‘A very high number of those women, when you get to the root cause of their problem, have experienced domestic or sexual violence,’ Claudia tells Metro.

‘For years, they’ve been gaslighted into minimising this trauma and told themselves “it was in the past, it doesn’t matter.” I want to bridge that gap to make sure women feel they can reach out for help without feeling shame.’

Claudia herself is a survivor of childhood sexual trauma herself and has been through coaching and therapy to ‘turn her life around’. Today, she runs a life-coach company in North London, with her services at Women + Health done on an entirely volunteer basis. 

‘I come here out of love,’ Claudia explains. ‘So many women, in particular traumatised women, put themselves last in their families when it comes to their health. They see healing and counselling as some sort of “luxury”. That’s why charities like this are so important.’

Based on Carol Street, a quick stroll from the heart of Camden Town, the Women + Health building used to be a Labour Club and, before that, was a pub which served workers from a nearby glue factory. 

When services launched in 1987, they were deemed quirky. Back then, yoga, reflexology, acupuncture, even talking therapy wasn’t nearly as common as it is today. 

‘The charity was started by a group which included [health and LGBT campaigner] Boo Armstrong,’ explains Gemma Tighe, director of Women + Health.

She tells Metro: ‘For a lot of our history, the services were completely free but now, due to the economic pressures we face, some are subsidised instead. If we had more funding, we could offer services to an even greater number of people.’

Gemma, like many of the staff at the charity, can empathise with the trauma women who visit the building have been through.

The 60-year-old, originally from Waterford in Ireland, experienced domestic and sexual violence at a young age and describes her childhood as ‘very troubled’. But despite her hardships, she was inspired by Irish feminists such as writer Edna O’Brien and journalist Nell McCafferty to stand up and help others.

Gemma adds: ‘When I was growing up in the seventies and eighties, things were very different. Police often didn’t do anything at all at the scene of domestic violence. They would log it as a “domestic” and leave. 

‘There’s so much more awareness now. It’s fantastic there are adverts on the tube about sexual harassment and how to intervene, campaigns about being a man and stepping up to stop things, and there’s of course the MeToo movement which have led to survivors sharing their experience. I think it’s a lot easier now for women to seek support, but there’s still a long way to go.’

According to the Trust for London, 25% of Londoners are in poverty after housing costs are taken into account. With a private therapy session costing £80 on average, many don’t seek support for their mental health. Meanwhile the poverty rate in Camden is 43%, higher than the London average. As a result, Women + Health want to reach as many of these individuals as possible to provide potentially life-changing support.

‘In my experience, many women hold the emotional load within their families and relationships. There can be a sense of expectation and the feeling they have to be self-sacrificing,’ explains Rachel Kraftman, a counsellor at the charity.

In the charity’s gardens there’s a plaque for Gillian Hall, a volunteer-turned trustee, who died in 2019. A wheelchair user, she made sure the building became fully accessible for people with physical disabilities. Elsewhere in the grounds, fresh rosemary and lavender grow and bright fuchsia plants stubbornly persevere despite the winter chill.

With Camden being so densely populated, the majority of women there don’t have their own green space at home. 

‘Being in nature is a huge solace to me,’ adds Bec. ‘I try to be nicer to myself these days but it’s still a work in progress. When I get up in the morning, I make hot water and a coffee, read for as long as I can and then journal for a few minutes. I think I am learning it’s about regulating myself before the world gets in.’

Last year, Bec directed BAFTA-winning Mia McKenna-Bruce in ‘Does That Make Me a Woman?’ The film saw Mia perform Bec’s poem of the same name and won the Best Screenplay Award at BAFTA as well as BIFA qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival. 

Bec adds: ‘The film is standing for vulnerability. I want women to feel they can be open about their past and the contradictions in their character and find strength in that. It takes a lot of strength to be vulnerable.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Kirsten.Robertson@metro.co.uk 

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